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If you were king or queen of the world, what would you do?

"I would be normal, and if someone did something wrong, I would send him to the dungeon," says Claire, age 6.

Yikes! Claire, if you consider the dungeon normal punishment for bad behavior, dare we ask what you would do for a serious crime? Perhaps, you've seen too many movies set in medieval times.

"If I were queen, everybody would serve God, or they would go to jail," says Autumn, 9. "If they still don't learn their lesson by the time they die, just remember they don't serve breakfast in hell."

Autumn, no one will ever accuse you of holding back. With that attitude, you'll probably never serve as a diplomat at the United Nations. Just remember that conversion by force is no conversion at all.

Jesus never took up the sword to persuade. He restored the ear of a man who came to arrest him after the Apostle Peter cut it off. "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword," Jesus told Peter (Matthew 26:52).

Christians should never use force to make anyone believe in the Lord Jesus as Savior. Neither should anyone be forced to follow Jesus as a disciple.

Jesus had unimaginable power. Yet he wept over Jerusalem, saying that he wanted to gather the Jews to himself as a hen gathers her chicks, but they wouldn't come to him (Matthew 23:37-39). Jesus foresaw the coming destruction in A.D. 70, when the Romans would leave Jerusalem in ruins, and the nation would cease to exist.

Under the reign of "King" Andrew, 11, "Everyone would be told about Jesus. They would have a choice and not be forced."

English clergyman Roger Williams founded Rhode Island to create a haven for religious dissenters. Williams sometimes debated with leaders of Christian sects whom he considered heretics, but he refrained from using his power as a government leader to coerce.

The Rhode Island experiment worked so well that the framers of our Constitution borrowed heavily from its constitution.

Williams' ideas are not welcome in some places today. I'll never forget my conversation in the early 1990s at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, D.